It's easy to sound wonderful on paper. The truth is I'm very overwhelmed and struggle daily to keep the right focus and see the forest while helping my little trees grow.

I constantly have to ask myself: Do I really see my children, or just the messes they make? It's not about me and my clean home---it's about their well-being. (Again, it's real easy to put that on paper. Now I have to go take dinner out of the oven---salmon loaf and an experimental Explorer bread---and try not to gnaw anybody's head off between here and the kitchen. ) I am inexpressibly thankful to have a husband who not only doesn't mind a few things on the floor, but also doesn't mind helping me organize the children cleaning up. It hasn't always been this way, but it is now.

ISTJ, BTD since 5/05. Battling chronic Lyme disease since ~1985.

"Everything is permissible for me, but not everything is beneficial..." I Corinthians 6:12

It's easy to sound wonderful on paper. The truth is I'm very overwhelmed and struggle daily to keep the right focus and see the forest while helping my little trees grow.

I constantly have to ask myself: Do I really see my children, or just the messes they make? It's not about me and my clean home---it's about their well-being. (Again, it's real easy to put that on paper. Now I have to go take dinner out of the oven---salmon loaf and an experimental Explorer bread---and try not to gnaw anybody's head off between here and the kitchen. ) I am inexpressibly thankful to have a husband who not only doesn't mind a few things on the floor, but also doesn't mind helping me organize the children cleaning up. It hasn't always been this way, but it is now.

Love the way you express yourself Ribbit That's beautiful!! & I am so glad that your husband is understanding & doing more

I think Paul's comment about authority is truly genius. I went to a talk by Paul Schutz (sp? former NA CEO of Porsche. He spoke about the the difference in power and authority.

I have the authority to tell my kids to eat their broccoli but they have the power to spit it out. I am always mindful at work that I have the authority to tell my coworkers what to do, the timeliness, and the quality, but my coworkers have power over the method.

My "n" ness always wants to find the most best method(s), but it drives my coworkers "coo-coo for Cocoa Puffs." I am the only N in a sea of SJness at work. They like having very exact parameters to work within, but I refuse to set only 1 best method, my brain absolutely rebels against it, it always wants to find a better way of doing things.

That is where my husband and I can't fill a dishwasher do laundry together. We decided long ago that was his domain (overwhelming ESTJ) and I would do the family finances, kid stuff, food, family calendar, general organization of who has to be where and when, homework etc, family events, more of the free flowing things.

DH likes laundry, cleaning, and dishwasher organization. Set times and set methods (laundry is done on Sat afternoon when everyone is out of the house and he has numerous TV's on sports channels) Kids and I empty the dishwasher and put the laundry away.

Ribbit, clean house gets so much easier as they get older, eventually they will start putting things away (not grudgingly), just don't obsess about how they do it (my husband wants things done exactly his way and no other way, huge fights between teenagers and him over method). I just want the end result in a timely manner, I am not interested in the method.....

On another note, I have a person at work who I think has Asperger's or full blown Autism. His supervisor and co-workers were ready to throw him out of the factory because of his overwhelmingly single mindedness. I found a test on the internet to see where one is on the spectrum. I am so not on the scale, it is funny, sound doesn't bother me, I work the absolute best when I have lots of action and noise around me, and I absolutely detest doing the same thing over and over again in a quiet environment.

the floor..........my house is still under contruction and being built with pocket money, don't get me thinking about the uggly concreat floor! funny if i am pushed by some one to do something the more i tend to put it off. it is learned from all those time i was told "you should be doing ____ instead of (what ever i was doing at the time)" as if anything i was doing was a waist of time. i am a maker of beutiful things and this is never apreceated untill the pretty thing is done. before that there are bits of it every were and they will stay there till i'm done. done with it, and the other project, and the house work, and taking care of animals, and going to work to pay for it all, and making something to eat and...and.....and............................

nothing to do? who has that!?swami made me an explorer!married to an AB+ mom to a B+ boy

Hmmm I scored 22????!!!! 1 above an average scientist & 2 below an average mathematician...soooo not me... I am a daydreamer who is for ever thankful she married an maths/finance & statistics whiz!! Sheesh I sometimes don't even remember what day of the week it is!!! It doesn't help that my week starts on a Wednesday

Possum, I usually have no clue what day of the week it is either. Yesterday I asked DH if he was going to the office tomorrow (today) and he looked at me funny. I said, "But you usually go on Thursdays." He said, "Tomorrow is Saturday."

Oops, no biggie--two days lost somewhere in time. Who cares?

ISTJ, BTD since 5/05. Battling chronic Lyme disease since ~1985.

"Everything is permissible for me, but not everything is beneficial..." I Corinthians 6:12

People in my age and older might not have been diagnosed with Asperger Syndrome as young because the diagnose wasn't known when I grew up since AS became a standard diagnosis first in 1992. I have been diagnosed recently.

The test seems to evaluate the level of social withdrawal. You would have to show me the data to convince me that a small score will not be able to capture some normal variance in personality. The ratings for Biologist, Mathematician, Scientist (one of the physical sciences, I would assume) are indications of normal people who are able to function well in the fields of creative (but not in a social way) and abstract thought. Small scores being an indication of a normal person with an NT intuitive (and therefore detached from immediate physical reality) and thinking (and therefore detached from immediate social reality) MBTI preference.

Typically, from what I have learned, the longer someone with learning disabilities has been able to function in society with out a diagnosis or some other kind of special accommodation, the more intelligent the person is. So I would really have to get to know a person socially before I could understand their score.

Before my therapy I would have expected to score in the fifties, at least. A completely introverted geek!

PS Lola, Excellent spiritual lesson! Very resonant for ES types.

My weight loss goal: 220 lbs. A 6'4" dyslexic oddball: the size of a line-backer, the silhouette of Winnie-the-Pooh.

DH was pointing out that when I decide I'm going to the grocery store, it'll take me a couple of hours to get out the door. I have learned to be dosed up on caffeine and/or yerba mate before I attempt to go shopping. I cannot do it otherwise. (Actually, if I go out of the house now I down a cup of coffee first. Otherwise I can't even hardly carry on a conversation and people look at me funny.) There have been times that I came back home and DH is pulling his hair out wondering where I've been and if I've eaten anything in the last several hours. Oops--lunch? What lunch? It would take me that long just to buy groceries. Of course it doesn't help when the children are with me.

Paul, I kind of felt like any introvert would score higher than an extrovert on that test.

Another thing I've been rolling over in my mind: the questions about reading people's intentions (whether in real life, in a book or in a movie). I disect people's words, but I have a hard time with body language. In a book, I can tell what they mean and what they're thinking, and in a movie it's the same. I always know who dunnit before DH does (even with him being intuitive) because I can read the actors' faces. But in real life? It's a lot harder.

I remember when I lived at home and I'd be talking to my sister. She'd just turn and walk away. I thought it meant that she was still listening but had something else to do, so I'd follow her, still talking. Eventually she'd say, "That's enough! I don't want to hear it anymore!" And then I'd get my feelings hurt and think that everybody misunderstood me. Which was true. DH does the same. He'll just walk off when I'm talking. I'll ask him if he'll please hear me out, because I'm explaining something or telling him a story, and he's like, "I've been listening for a looooong time. I'm done. I can't concentrate anymore on what you're saying." I used to think it was rude, but now, after reading on this thread and doing all the reading about Tomatis therapy, I'm beginning to wonder if it's my persception of time that's the problem. I don't know how long I've been talking. I can't read their body language saying, "I'm not listening anymore. I'm bored. Go away." And so I keep going until they tell me, usually non-too-sweetly, to stop. Maybe it really is my fault after all. DH is better now because he understands the problem. Bless his heart. Maybe one day I can explain it to my sister who thinks I'm nuts. Maybe one day I can explain it to my brothers who also think I'm nuts.

I remember once riding with my siblings in my youngest brother's car. (I think DH was there too, before we were married.) It was at Thanksgiving. My brother had this dark purple '72 Dodge Charger. Great car (to look at). It had delightful character. He was always tinkering under the hood. I guess that was the only time I rode in it, but there we were, all 6 of us packed in, coasting down a hill, when suddenly the engine hit an RPM that nearly sent me through the roof. I felt like my teeth were going to fall out. I clenched them to stop the sound. My head felt like it was going to explode. I crunched down and covered my ears with my hands and tried to stop my head from vibrating. Then I hollered out above the noise (there was no muffler--welcome to the South--plus all the windows were rolled down which was a whole 'nother problem), "Would you either speed up or slow down?" He looked at me funny, then cracked up. No, he wasn't going to accomodate me. He thought it was funny. By the time we got home I was a mess. I flew out of the car and ran inside and had to sit on the couch for a long time with my eyes shut, recovering. I felt like I'd run a marathon. My brother came up and said, "What's with you?" I tried to explain what I thought was happening, with the RPMs being the same frequency as my brain or something and he rolled his eyes and walked away. I don't know what was going on, but I never rode in that car again.

ISTJ, BTD since 5/05. Battling chronic Lyme disease since ~1985.

"Everything is permissible for me, but not everything is beneficial..." I Corinthians 6:12